Lisa Hershman, acting chief management officer of the Department of Defense, told Defense News in an interview published Friday that DoD is focusing on five key initiatives to find greater savings in fiscal year 2019.

Those programs are category management; information technology and business systems; procurement of goods and services in a different manner; health care management; and logistics and supply chain acquisition.

“Those are our big ones. Now, what we’re looking at is not only how we do things, but we’re looking at those processes, we’re looking at policies, systems and then resource alignment,” she noted.

One of the lessons she has learned during her first year within the CMO office is ensuring cost savings without hampering customer experience. She said her office also looks at quality levels, cycle times and ways to reduce duplication.

Hershman said the CMO office found $4.7B in combined savings for FY 2017 and FY 2018 and has teamed up with the comptroller to come up with a process to validate the savings from working capital funds.

When asked about the department’s annual audit, she noted that the CMO office has been conducting biweekly meetings in order to keep up with corrective action systems.

“We’ve actually created for the audit a common database of corrective action plans in order to track the execution of the corrective actions,” she added.
 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched the Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration program to deploy emerging technology into treating combat wounds, DARPA said Wednesday. The four-year effort seeks researchers capable of using artificial intelligence, biosensors and actuators to develop a solution for stimulating real-time healing processes, accelerate tissue repair and regeneration.

DARPA expects to produce a closed-loop and adaptive system using sensors that analyze the wound’s healing state, biological actuators that transmit signals to catalyze healing and adaptive learning methods that can process information and determine the proper course of action. Additionally, the agency encourages researchers to develop a way of influencing healing after osseointegration surgery, which is often done to support the installment of prosthetics into wounded servicemen. 

DARPA will hold a Proposer’s Day to discuss the program on March 1 in Arlington, Va.

A new partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Center for Atmospheric Research intends to build a common infrastructure for climate modeling. The joint effort aims to foster collaboration and resource sharing between climate modeling scientists from public and private sectors, NOAA said Thursday. The new infrastructure would store shared models, avoid duplications and boost research efficiency for weather and climate forecasts.

“Historically, different architectures for developing weather and climate models across the public and private sector created challenges for implementing the very best systems quickly,” said Neil Jacobs, assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction at NOAA. He added the infrastructure would streamline the process and provide a common set of tools for researchers and forecasters to accelerate model production.

NOAA is also looking to update the Global Forecasting System with a new community modeling-based dynamic core designed to drive up forecast accuracy.

President Trump intends to nominate Christopher Scolese, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, for the same position at the National Reconnaissance Office. Scolese has received numerous of NASA awards and held several leadership roles including associate administrator and chief engineer at the space agency, the White House said Thursday.

In 2009, he implemented the country’s civil space program during his nearly seven-month tenure as acting NASA administrator. The space sector leader also worked to align NASA’s policy with executive and legislative bodies, and regulated the agency’s engineering workforce.

The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency started phase two of the Secure Handhelds on Assured Resilient networks at the tactical Edge program aiming to protect crucial information on multiple security levels, FCW reported Thursday. The SHARE effort intends to access multiple security levels through one device connected to a tactical network to protect data exchanged with key coalition entities.

Joseph Evans, SHARE program manager working under DARPA’s strategic technology office, said the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps will start testing around 100 of the new SHARE devices in June before a full transition to the military branches by 2020. Evans expects to receive feedback on the devices as well as their Android Windows Tactical Assault Kit GPS mapping interface that is deployed by the State Department and Department of Defense.

The SHARE project was built on discoveries made during DARPA’s Remote, Advise, and Assist program launched to help special forces and coalition partners collaborate on Islamic State counterterrorism missions.

Will Roper, assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, intends to train military program managers to understand software development and improve how the service acquires new technologies, Federal News Network reported Thursday. 

The official will work with the Air Force Education and Training Command to create formal certification for Air Force software leaders to participate in the tech acquisition process. Roper also wants to assign the officials as coding ambassadors, who will oversee systems development and procurement. 

“We train people to be acquisition professionals and we call them materiel leaders and senior materiel leaders. We have certifications that say you can have this much control, we don’t have that for software,” Roper said. 

In 2018, the Air Force established the Kessel Run hub in Boston, tasked with building and providing new software and applications to airmen. The service has plans for additional hubs in the future, including those planned for the Space and Missile Systems Center, the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System and the Air Force Sustainment Center.

Lisa Hershman, acting chief management officer at the Pentagon, said the agency’s fiscal year 2020 funding request will include a formal reform budget for the first time, Defense News reported Thursday. She said her office has over 50 reform initiatives focusing on the Office of the Secretary of Defense, fourth estate agencies and military departments.

“We’re actually giving a nod specifically to numbers allocated for reform. Let’s keep in mind, some of these, to make these big changes, might include some investment, but there’ll also be savings,” Hershman said.

In late fiscal 2017 and in fiscal 2018, the CMO’s office found $4.7B in validated savings from reform efforts across the Department of Defense. Hershman said the new initiatives included in DoD’s FY20 budget could slightly increase savings. Changes in regulations and statutes as well as streamlining the procurement process could also contribute to the future savings.

Hershman said her team found 249 regulations that if repealed would save nearly $25M on the process side. On the procurement side, the CMO suggested reviewing day-to-day expenses of DoD to address bureaucracy.